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New Braunfels Herald Zeitung (Newspaper) - July 5, 2000, New Braunfels, Texas
New (Braunfels
Water Restrictions
■ New Braunfels Utilities customers with addresses ending in 5 can water today after 7 p.m. Well users with addresses ending in 4 or 5 can water today after 8 p.m.Herald-Zeitung
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By Ron Maloney
Staff Writer
New Braunfels celebrated the Fourth of July with its usual red, white and blue patriotism and fervor Tuesday from the morning program on the Main Plaza to the parade to the concerts in Landa Park.
It was all about ice cream and apple pie, lawn chairs and people you may not have seen for a year — or at least since September’s Comal County Fair parade.
It was about free concerts in Landa Park.
And then it was about the rockets’ red glare when the fireworks began about 9:15 p.m. As promised this past week by assistant to the city manager Don Ferguson, the 25 minutes of star bursts, flares, streamers and earth-shaking thunder disappointed no one.
See JULY FOURTH/5 A
Photos by K. JESSIE SLATEN and CHRIS PACE/Herald-Zeitung
Above, the Comal Community Band entertains the crowd anxiously awaiting the Fourth of July fireworks.
Left: Members of the New Braunfels High School Junior ROTC present the colors of the flag Tuesday after the parade downtown.
By Heather Todd
Staff Writer
Comal Independent School District trustees may sue the architects and engineers who renovated Canyon Intermediate School because of mold problems discovered in 19 classrooms earlier this year.
The issue is expected to emerge when trustees meet 6 p.m. Thursday at the district’s Human Resources Building, 1419 N. Business 35.
In May, trustees appointed a consultant — HDR/Simp-son of San Antonio — to investigate and make recommendations about how to remedy the non-toxic mold problem at CIS, 1275 N. Business 35.
HDR/Simpson specializes in forensic investigations of construction-related problems.
Because of the holiday weekend, district officials were not available to confirm the names of the firms involved in the renovation.
But a district official familiar with the situation said the contractor was Tecom Construction, and the architect was Barnes Architects. Both are Austin firms.
At a meeting in May, district consultant Roy Linnartz said a copy of the contract with HDR/Simpson was provided to attorneys for the CIS renovations contractor and architect.
“I think they realize they have some responsibility for the problems we face with the building,” he said.
Linnartz said HDR/Simpson would help the district figure out how best to recover its costs to repair the mold damage.
CISD officials began investigating the mold problem at the intermediate school after two staff members complained of allergy-like reactions in mid-March.
No students are known to have been affected.
During a meeting in May, district staff said seven staff' members had complained of health problems possibly related to mold.
On March 13, CISD officials had air quality tests conducted at the school by Raba-Kistner Consultants, Inc., an engineering firm specializing in environmental consulting, geotechnical engineering and construction testing.
Officials found traces of mold in 19 classrooms. Two of four classrooms behind the school cafeteria were closed. Those classrooms will require repairs that include replacing damaged wallboard.
About a dozen students used each of the two classrooms — for the most part for less than two hours each day, district officials said. A contractor that specializes in dealing with moisture-related problems cleaned the remaining classrooms.
Linnartz told board members at a May meeting that testing indicated there was not any airborne mold since the cleaning.
He also said checks at two other campuses built by the architect and contractor turned up no trace of mold.
Diner settles in where others have come and gone
By Heather Todd rant was there briefly as well.
Staff Writer
Most customers ask Arizona natives Vikki and Hector Monarrez the same question of their new restaurant — “You’re going to stay here, right?”
It’s a logical question, considering the number of restaurants that have come and gone at the location at Union Avenue and E. San Antonio Street.
Toppers Pizza occupied 512 E. San Antonio St. until recently, and a Mexican fast-food restau-
But since June 4, Vikki and Hector Monarrez have served up 52 diff erent kinds of omelets and other traditional breakfast and lunch items from 6 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. — and they are determined to make the restaurant a longterm success.
“We have to,” Vikki said. “This is our baby. We bought the building. This is what we wanted to do for a number of years. We love the building and we love the community,” she said. “We start
ed this for the people of New Braunfels. Having Schlitterbahn in our backyard is a bonus.” Schlitterbahn and the Comal River, where summer tubing flourishes, already have provided a steady stream of “regulars.” “We have great regulars,” Vikki said. “They come almost everyday and they bring us their wet money and we put it under the heat lamp.”
The restaurant also gets a lot of business from neighboring residents and employees at McKenna
Memorial Hospital and doctors' offices.
Vikki said when she and her husband bought the building they were told many restaurants did not fare well at the location. But they weren’t daunted.
Vikki said, “I asked, ‘Why? What was going on?' And, the consensus was inconsistency.”
She said previous owners were not always open at the same times each day.
“It was kind of scary for us See UNION STREET/5A
Local resident Jerry Berry (left) enjoys a late lunch at the new Union Street Station,
512 E. San Antonio St.
K. JESSIE SLATEN/
Herald-Zeitung
English village honors NB veteran of WWII
Jerome and Francis Rullman
By Heather Todd Staff Writer
ASTON CLINTON, England — Mike Fields was not alive when his uncle, New Braunfels native Jerome Pfuliman, died in a plane crash in an English orchard during World War II.
But, in June, as he was standing in the middle of an English cemetery where the bodies of 3,800 American soldiers were laid to rest, he felt a personal connection to the 22-year old World War ll airman he never met.
“You get that feeling that there’s some
thing going on that’s a lot bigger than you are,” Fields said in a telephone interview from his Houston home.
Joining Fields in the search for Pfuliman s grave in the Cambridge cemetery were his wife and daughters, and his mother and father-in-law. New Braunfels residents Jackie and Paul Ullrich.
On Jan. 3, 1945, a World War ll B-24 Liberator crashed into an orchard in Aston Clinton, near Oxford, shortly after takeoff as the crew prepared to drop leaflets urging Germans to join the resistance.
For nine of the 10 crew men on board
including 2nd Lt. and co-pilot Pfuliman — it was their first and last mission as part of the 406th Squadron in the 8th U.S. Air Force.
All crewmen were killed but Pfuliman was the only one to be buried in England. He left behind his wife, Francis, and daughter Sandra, Mrs. Pfuliman’s child from a previous marriage.
In June, residents of Aston Clinton — who never met the 10 Americans and only knew their identities through an Air Force accident report — unveiled a brass plaque engraved with the airmen’s names on theSee VETERAN/5AInside
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Vol. 149 No. 164 16 pages in 2 sections July 5, 2000
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Let freedom ring_ __iool mold could grow into lawsuit
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